The Liberal Party dumping its net zero by 2050 targets will not help the Coalition regain inner-city seats needed to win back government, former PM Malcolm Turnbull warns.

Turnbull said on Friday that policy within the Coalition was being dictated by conservative arms of the Liberals as well as the Nationals, which sent a message the party was not taking climate change seriously.

Following weeks of internal divisions, the Liberals agreed on Thursday to a climate policy which would see net zero targets dropped and more taxpayer money poured into coal and gas plants.

Turnbull said Opposition Leader Sussan Ley faced the same challenges he did as leader, with a vocal right-wing of the party setting the agenda on climate.

“She’s caught in this terrible fish bowl with the Liberal party room. They’ve got the memory of a goldfish and the dining habits of piranhas,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.

“They seem to just keep on forgetting and making the same mistake again and again.

“This is a problem I faced, too. It’s been a problem for nearly 20 years in the Coalition that they’re allowing the policy agenda to be dictated by right-wing media.”

The Liberals’ decision to abandon a net-zero emissions pledge came after the Nationals announced earlier in November they would also ditch the policy.

It came despite the Liberals losing blue-ribbon inner-city seats at the 2022 federal election. They went to teal independents, who campaigned on greater climate action.

Turnbull said scrapping net zero would not allow the Liberals to make inroads in winning the seats back.

“All of those electorates are very committed to action on climate,” he said.

Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan dismissed the claims the policy would harm the party’s electoral fortunes in teal seats.

“People will understand that they don’t want us racing ahead of the rest off the world, costing us manufacturing jobs, costing us industry jobs and putting unrealistic and unreasonable pressures on households,” he told ABC Radio.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Liberals were too divided to put together a coherent climate policy.

“Sussan Ley has said that she would be a moderate and that she’d modernise the Liberal Party’s agenda after their 2025 result. Instead, she’s chosen to take Australia backwards,” he said.

Independent MP Sophie Scamps, who won the Sydney seat of Mackellar in 2022 off the Liberals, said the Liberals were being dictated to by the Nationals on the policy front.

“The Liberal Party no longer know who they represent or what they stand for. They have been running around trying to create some sort of wedge to get themselves back into power,” she told ABC TV.

–AAP